Discussing Controversial Issues Affecting The British Chinese Community UK

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Documentary Film On Chinese Community In Britain Released In London

LONDON, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- A documentary film on the history and life of Chinese community in Britain was released on Thursday evening.

"It is a symbol of cultural bond between the two countries and will help boost cultural exchanges and relations between them," he said. "It is the first documentary about Chinese in Britain," noted Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to Britain.Named as "Talk of Home," the movie featured stories of nearly 20 Chinese people and their families, so as to invite foreign viewers understand Chinese community as a special group. He hoped that the film could be a gift to celebrate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and UK.

Meanwhile Martin Davidson, chief executive of British Council, believed that the Chinese community could actually act as ambassadors between China and Britain. There are currently 650,000 Chinese people living in Britain. "It is interesting to see how Chinese people adapt to the UK society in the movie," he said. One of the characters in the movie was 82-year-old Chan Cheng, who was a consultant for Overseas Chinese Affairs. "At first I didn't (believe) they were actually making a film," he said. "They (the producing team) followed me back to Shanghai and recorded my life bit by bit."

Chan has been in Britain for 58 years.

"Now my great-grand daughter is four years old and she is blonde with blue eyes, you can hardly say she is Chinese."Throughout the years, Chan's thoughts were changing. "At first I couldn't accept my son's marrying foreigners," he said. "But now that my family members are from Germany, Ireland, etc, I am beginning to realize that the world is shrinking and boundaries between nations are becoming blurred."

8 comments:

Wonder if the doc in trying to advance your 'cultural understanding' in a documentary about Chinese in Britain will touch on the fact that some of the first Chinese to arrive in the UK were considered as 'pets' by white imperialists?

Ah who cares about history or culture, let's focus on multiculturalism instead - it's much cooler.

I wonder if the doc will feature interviews with Simon San's family and the inspector who ignored his racist death at the hands of vicious teenagers or the mainland family that were executed by the invisible covert M15 knifeman that big mac munching police could not track?

No? Guess its more important to smooth political relations between Britain and China are more important than defenseless and immorally murdered human lives.

May as well watch a looped HSBC commercial.

So much for the honesty of portraying the truth about the 'Chinese in Britain'.

"They interviewed more than 30 Chinese people in Britain and finally chose nearly 20 of them to tell their stories in the documentary. Among them are Olympic horse-rider Alex Hua Tian, the Chinese ambassador in Britain, overseas Chinese students in the UK, and a number of Chinese restaurant owners. "

In other words, a bourgeois mixed race Eurasian that chose to represent China instead of UK in the Olympics (Alex), a CCP FOB that doesn't have British Citizenship(Chinese Ambassador), more FOB's that don't have British citizenship(overseas students), Chinese restaurant owners (more FOB perpertual foreigners!).

......So WHERE ARE THE BBC's? Oh, surprise surprise, we're being excluded as usual and we're being represented by FOBs and mixed race Eurasians yet again.

It's quite clear that the government of China will never back a "ethnic Chinese, but British/American etc" stance. And of course the mixed race people, most who are more white than Chinese, wouldn't do the same either. But we aren't alone. There are overseas, ethnic Chinese communities in non China countries across the world. Who are distinctly Australian, American, German, British, Singporean etc... but also take pride in being ethnic Chinese. Sooner or later we'll have to work together and join forces, because BBCs on their own do not have the incentive as American ethnic Chinese do to carve out their own identity as a minority in a white world.

I've heard pro-China expats lauding China as a country where racism doesn't exist. No it DOES exist, only the white expat is at the top of the hierarchy so obviously it does'nt affect them.

The truth is Mainland Chinese equate nationality and race far stronger than Westerners. The idea of a British Born Chinese being a productive member of Britain but choosing to hang out mostly with his/her own kind whilst still speaking English is quite incomprehensible and even unsavoury for most Mainland Chinese. When my mum told an old classmate of hers about some of the difficulties that BBCs like myself had with racism and identity, her classmate's answer was unequivocal - why doesn't he just marry an English girl and solve all his problems?

China's government is far more concerned about building ties with the West and, most importantly, placating its Western-loving populace with stories of hapa kids and China-loving foreigners to care anything about us.

Just noticed this. How digusting that the only portrayal are recent immigrants, or those who are basically white but some ancestor or something was Chinese. I mean, talk about an identity crisis. Compare this to Asians - you have full blooded asians 100 years ago, their descendants are still fully blooded asians, by marrying and having kids with similar British born asians and so on.

Now find me a ethnic Chinese descended in a similar way. You can't. All full blooded Chinese are recent immigrants - and if they stay here, their descendants will turn more white by the generation.

Of course you can't partially blame the doc on showing a majority cast of immigrants and 90% whites - because that is reflective of the BBC community, whereas other communities are more distinct, identifiable in their roots yet STILL BRITISH.